42 WITCHCRAFT IN DORSET. 



there dwelt a woman named Kerley and her daughter, a girl of 

 about eighteen, and the latter was supposed to be bewitched and to 

 be the subject of the strangest manifestations. It was positively 

 declared that articles had been thrown out of the cottage into the 

 street, although neither window nor door was open, and these were 

 stated to have been sent flying about in all directions. An old 

 woman named Burt was set down as the cause of all the mischief, 

 and she was declared to have assumed the form of a hare,f to have 

 been chased by the neighbours, and then to have sat up and looked 

 defiantly at them. It was positively believed that until blood was 

 drawn from the witch the manifestations would not cease. 



The following instances show that Dorset folk were not slow 

 even in this, the last quarter of the 19th century, to avail them- 

 selves of the remedy here suggested when once they got the 

 opportunity. The Rev. R. F. Meredith, rector of Halstock, Dorset, 

 writing to the Times in June, 1883. says : "There is no need to go 

 "to West Prussia for witchcraft towards the end of the 19th 



leaves which were considered efficacious for his purpose, and threw them 

 at the object of his wrath. The wind, however, happening to be blowing 

 in the opposite direction, some of the leaves were carried back against 

 the person of the would-be sorcerer. This so affected his mind that on 

 the following morning he was unable to attend to his usual work, and 

 intimated that he was going to die ; and, although he was fed with 

 arrowroot and other sustaining food by my informant, who did not until 

 afterwards know the cause of his illness, he gradually sank, and died 

 before night-fall ! Another pathetic instance, illustrative of the extra- 

 ordinary power apparently possessed by the South Sea Islanders to will 

 their own deaths, so to speak, has been related to me on good authority. 

 A woman who had formed an attachment to a Polynesian labourer in 

 Fiji, and was desirous of accompanying him when on the expiration of 

 his indenture he was being returned in a "labour" vessel to his native 

 country, on being left behind in Fiji, swam out after the vessel as far as 

 the reef (some two miles or more), and, on being taken back again in a 

 boat, expressed her determination to die before the next morning ; and, 

 taking to her bed, succeeded in carrying out her resolve ! 



t It is believed in some parts of Dorset that a witch often takes the 

 form of a hare and haunts the downs and hills at night time, being only 

 visible at the dead of night, and that nothing will take effect upon her 

 but a silver bullet. See The Haunted Hare, one of the Songs of Dorset, 

 contained in a collection of poems called The Olden and Modern Times, 

 by the Rev. W. Smith -Marriott, published in 1855. 



